Pursuing the News

Even when you write as often as I do, you can’t really keep up with all the zaniness that passes for the news today. But I can’t help trying.

For instance, there were only three senators who voted against confirming John Kerry, who not only lied about his service and his injuries in Vietnam, but then lied about throwing away his medals. He not only kept his medals, but had them framed on the wall of his Senate office. It was other people’s medals he tossed for the benefit of the cameras. In any case, I thought it was worth looking into, and I discovered that the three senators who had the courage of their convictions, and deserved to be lauded, were John Cornyn, James Inhofe and Ted Cruz.

Speaking of the members of the U.S. Senate, most of whom are ex-lawyers, I heard some wag recently suggest that it’s 98% of lawyers who give the other 2% a bad name.

Let me first state so that there is no confusion, I respect the members of the military. After all, the main order of business for the federal government is not, as liberals insist, funding green energy companies, handing out free stuff in exchange for votes or promoting abortions and same-sex marriages. Instead, it is to protect the nation, and it’s the military that handles that end of things. That being said, I do not believe it provides veterans with a lifetime pass from criticism. I actually heard a senator state that Chuck Hagel should not have had to face such tough questions at his confirmation hearing because he had not only served in the military, but had been wounded in combat.

Just because people have served – some more honorably than others—is no guarantee that they will be anything special once they return to civilian life. After all, Charley Rangel, John Murtha, Colin Powell, David Petraeus, John McCain, Daniel Inouye and Ted Kennedy, along with Chuck Hagel, have not only been shown to have feet of clay, but in some cases have shown themselves to be covered in muck all the way to the top of their heads.

Proof that liberals aren’t really concerned with gun violence is that they keep yammering about the size of magazines, but have said nothing about taking on the urban gangs responsible for most of the murders in America. Their hypocrisy is even more apparent when you realize that every city whose streets are bloody because of the hands-off approach politicians take with these punks is saddled with a liberal mayor.

It’s apparent that when the same people who wish to disarm law-abiding Americans turn a blind eye to the black and Hispanic gangs that terrorize their communities, they adopt a hands-off approach to guns only when they regard them as tools of the criminal trade.

In the aftermath of Chris Kyle, the former Navy Seal super sniper, and his friend, being murdered at a Texas shooting range, Dan Parker wrote to say he assumed that, henceforth, the Democrats would designate shooting ranges as gun-free zones. And I say why wouldn’t they? After all, they had already designated an Army base, Fort Hood, a gun-free-zone, thus making it available to Major Hasan for target practice.

The funniest thing to come out of the gun debate was the photo of Barack Obama allegedly skeet-shooting at Camp David. Even I, who haven’t fired a rifle since my days in the ROTC, know that you don’t hold a rifle that high up on your shoulder and you certainly don’t aim it straight-on when skeet-shooting, as if your target were Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Skeets, as we all know, are airborne. Firing at the angle shown in the photo, the only thing Obama would have hit was the poor schmuck working the skeet release. You would think that Team Obama would do a better job of it even if they were merely photo-shopping the picture in order to show that Obama’s trumped-up war on guns was nothing personal.

As you may have heard, it has been announced that the FBI is looking into allegations that Sen. Robert Menendez has been accused of engaging in sexual activity with under-age Dominican prostitutes. He denies it, insisting it’s a tissue of lies concocted by a cabal of right-wingers.

As Americans, we are supposed to believe he’s innocent until proven guilty. And I’m sure that those who park their commonsense at the curb will give him the benefit of the doubt. But not I. For one thing, why else would anyone go there as often as he has, except to do nasty things he can’t get away with closer to home? For another, when is the last time there’s been a rumor about a politician engaged in unsavory sexual activity that hasn’t been proven true?

For good measure, there was President James Buchanan and his V.P., William Rufus King, whom Andrew Jackson, not the most politically correct man in the world, jokingly referred to as Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy.

Finally, if there has ever been a person in our lifetime who best exemplified what it means to be a devout liberal, it is probably Jane Fonda, whose actual birth name was Lady Jane Seymour Fonda. Not only did she go out of her way to lend aid and comfort to our enemy in Vietnam — (“Hanoi Jane,” you must agree, is a lot catchier than Lady Jane Seymour Fonda) — , but her personal hypocrisy is of Olympian proportions.

Just recently, I discovered that she was the third choice to star in “The Exorcist.” The first, Audrey Hepburn, agreed to play the role that eventually went to Ellen Burstyn, but only if it were shot in Italy, where she was then living. Next was Anne Bancroft, who turned down the role only because she had just discovered she was pregnant.

It was at that point, after two of the best actresses in the world had passed with regrets, that it was offered to Fonda. She turned it down by phoning the head of Warner Brothers and demanding to know why he would want to make” a piece of capitalist rip-off bullshit like this.”

To grasp the full, self-aggrandizing, impact of that statement, you have to keep in mind that this self-anointed moral arbiter had already starred in “Barbarella,” the execrable sex fantasy directed by her first husband, Roger Vadim, and would soon go on to make millions of dollars with a series of silly exercise DVDs that she peddled with the sort of single-mindedness usually reserved to used car salesmen, televangelists and Bill O’Reilly.

It wasn’t until some years later that she hit the trifecta of liberal hypocrisy when she tied the knot with billionaire goofball capitalist Ted Turner.

About Burt Prelutsky

Burt Prelutsky, a very nice person once you get to know him, has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times and a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine. As a freelancer, he has written for the New York Times, Washington Times, TV Guide, Modern Maturity, Emmy, Holiday, American Film, and Sports Illustrated.
For television, he has written for Dragnet, McMillan & Wife, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, Bob Newhart, Family Ties, Dr. Quinn and Diagnosis Murder. In addition, he has written a batch of terrific TV movies. View Burt’s IMDB profile.
Talk about being well-rounded, he plays tennis and poker... and rarely cheats at either.
He lives in the San Fernando Valley, where he takes his marching orders from a wife named Yvonne and a dog named Angel.Author website: http://www.burtprelutsky.com/

Good column, Burt, except you don’t aim a shotgun when trap shooting, you point it….So now we have Tank Commander Dukakis, Duck Hunter Kerry, and 3-letter man Obama (golf, basketball, and skeet)..what a bunch of insecure characaters…

Burt Prelutsky

Joe: Well, the 3 Stooges have a lot to be insecure about.

Burt

sheila0405

I live in Vineland, NJ, which is very close to Philadelphia. For years I have watched Philly news, and for years I have witnessed the tragedy of inner city shootings. When the gun control debate heated up after the Sandy Hook school shootings, all I could think about was the fact that children are constantly being murdered in my region by thugs and gang members, but there was no national outcry about the issue. Even Chicago didn’t make national headlines until the upward spike in gang killings coincided with the tenure of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Yes, the news is not only zany, but those in the media are hypocrites.

Burt Prelutsky

Sheila: And politicians on both sides of the aisle are terrified of being called racists by the NY Times, Al Sharpton and the ACLU. They prefer being labeled cowards by me.

Is it because those ghetto thugs and gang bangers are at least as good as getting out the Dem vote as the Cosa Nostra used to be?

Just askin’.

GlenFS

Great point, Burt! If liberals were truly interested in stopping the carnage of gun related violence they should start in their own domain. When they’ve dealt with that, they may have an iota of credibility to talk to law abiding citizens about their 2nd Amendment rights.

Of course they’re all upside down on what it takes to make their streets safe from gangs and thugs, so it couldn’t succeed in any case. Urban streets will only be safe when their citizens enjoy the rights our founders intended them to have.

Burt Prelutsky

Glen: Urban streets will be made safe when the governments (federal, state and city) get together and treat gangs just like any other terrorists. But none of them have the guts to do the right thing if it means being labeled racist.

Burt

GlenFS

Urbanites should be able to expect such a sweep from government, though it would only happen if a group of tea partiers were trying to do it. Then you’d see the national guard, and they’d move against the tea partiers rather than the gangs.

GlenFS: You’ve got that right. As soon as 6’3″ thug Trayvon Martin was shot, suddenly we started seeing his baby pictures all over the place. No sooner does a punk drug dealer get shot by the cops than he’s turned into an honor student and a future recipient of a Nobel Prize in Physics.

It was disgusting to watch the hearing for Chuck Hagel who turns out to be anti-Israel and then have Republicans vote for him. We need more people like Ted Cruz who stick to their guns! Obama only picked Hagel to have a Republican to blame on his future hairbrain schemes!

Burt Prelutsky

Sou: It also allows Obama to pretend to be bipartisan. Ted Cruz is quickly becoming my favorite politician.

The other reason is because Obama is just as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic and pro-Muslim as Chuck Hagel is.

artlouis

I don’t think you should pick on Lady Jane, because after all she served in the military, if you count the North Vietnamese military, operating an ack-ack gun. Speaking of Lady Jane, do you recall what that means in D.H. Lawrence’s most infamous book?

Burt Prelutsky

artlouis: I do not. I’m afraid it’s been too many years since I read the nearly unreadable “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”

Burt

cmacrider

But Burt, I thought Jane Fonda did have a role in the Exorcist. Didn’t she have the voice parts for the Devil???

Burt Prelutsky

On the chance you’re not yanking my chain, that was Mercedes McCambridge.

In replying to the comment about Hagel’s service, someone else (wish I had thought of it) also pointed out that Benedict Arnold also had served and was wounded. I knew there was something that didn’t seem right about the photo of Obama skeet “shooting” but couldn’t really figure it out. Thanks for noting that.

Burt Prelutsky

My pleasure, Paul. I’m glad I could be of service.

Burt

Wheels55

I fully agree that just because one served in the military, one does not get a pass in life. But it will bother me forever if someone knocks Chris Kyle – a soldier of soldiers. He kept signing up for more tours of duty because he felt a profound sense of love for his country and fellow soldiers – even at the expense of his home life. It’s for this that Ron Paul has dropped a few notches in my opinion of him.

Burt Prelutsky

Wheels: I believe that Chris Kyle’s reputation will forever remain intact. After all, he died a hero, not a politician.

Burt

cmacrider

Wheels; I hope Americans will continue to respect Chris Kyle. Snipers live a very dangerous and lonely life hated by their enemies and despised by their fellow soldiers. Unlike most regular soldiers who have the advantage of shooting their rifles “in the fog of war” these folks have no illusions as to the consequences of their actions. It is an experience which affects their lives long after they have retired from the battlefield. I have some knowledge of what I speak as my father was of the same trade as Chris Kyle … only in the Canadian Army.

Burt Prelutsky

cma: I was impressed when Chris Kyle was asked if he was troubled by his actions or had any regrets, and he said his only regret was that he hadn’t shot more of the enemy before they had the chance to kill his fellow warriors.

And a tip of the hat to your dad.

Burt.

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